johnplumb

I seem to remember something about when whipping the knot on the fox hooks you needed to take the turns down level with the point of the hook before bringing it back through the eye to get it to work properly .

Fairly sure it's a cat , and my daughter wants it .

Now I don't know anything of bait making but I assuming it will lose its smell as well as look differant after sitting on a lake bed for a few days , isn't there a case for rolling boilies with the blandest ingredients you possibly can ? Just maybe the fish feel that they are safe because there is no smell to them

He is , Charles looks like he could do no wrong .here is Bill as a kitten and now .

Bill got in a fight , he is not happy

Let's face it if your rigs are not spot on your wasting your time . Anyone who isn't a bit OCD over them is set to fail. I wonder how many people neglect to check rigs and concentrate over getting other things right and end up fishing in the perfect spot with every thing pinned down with a rig that just won't work .

So sorry Andy , Thought I was looking at a picture of our black cat when I saw Purrdi , his sister was run over 10 years ago

Has any one used the fox naked chod beads ? http://www.ericsangling.co.uk/fishing/Fox-Edges-Tungsten-Chod-Bead-Kit.html

I hope you're fishing

This is the rig that caught me most of my fish this year including my pb at 29 lb , Drenham double strength line Korda wide gape hook and a quick link . About as simple as it gets

This is Bill as a kitten and as he is today 6 years on although he will catch and kill and eat mice , just kill rats , he does have a habit of also loosing them spent half of Boxing Day catching one he lost

http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/coleman-pefectflow-one-burner-propane-stove-p262645 I have one of these and for under £6 you just can not go wrong the coleman propane cylinder is around £7 burns realy well

Sleeping bags are designed to work against your skin, in reality you would be best off in the nip. One of the quickest ways to loose heat is through sweat evaporating, and getting in a sleeping bag with a load of clothes on will make you sweat, in turn making you colder than if you had nothig on at all. Getting changed into fresh thremals, jogging bottoms and a light mid layer fleece at night is the way for me. So why not sleep in a pair of boxers ? if what you say is right why bother with thermals ?

I don't get this going to bed with not alot on , you have sat there all day warming up what you have been wearing and then you take it all off and get into a cold sleeping bag . Then in the morning you get to put on a load of cold clothes and you have to warm them up .

what do you wear when you get into your bag at night ?

Two cats , fat black cat and Bill who is ginger and seems to be trying to rid the world of rats and mice he eats most of the mice but leaves the rats for my wife to find the rats go on the garage roof for the red kites , they love em.

Yes, I have seen that one but £15.00 might not be cost effective for fishery owners who have to provide multiple tanks, plus there is all the hassle of servicing them every week. They might just as well do as Les Kaolins do right now i.e. supply the gear and prohibit anglers from using their own stuff. Virkol is produced by Dupont and it contains their Oxone + other chemicals. I use Dupont Oxone + Sodium Bromine to shock (sanitize) swimming pools and it does not even cost £15 for 50,000 litres. One problem could be that the water has to be correctly balanced but that is simple enough and all pool owners have to deal with it. Another is that they may not be able to chuck it on the grass after use. Then the concentration has to be correct. What I do know is that this sanitizer kills, ALL bacteria, viruses, fungi and algae in seconds but, within 30 minutes, the water is safe for people to swim. Possible problems could be - a) They may need two tanks. The first with a detergent to remove the dirt because otherwise a lot of the sanitizing power would be lost. b) It might not penetrate porous surfaces such as landing-net fabric. Lets see what Dupont say, they put me on the right track before. Hi Mike , from what i can see the stuff is around £10 /kg lets say a 100l tank @ 2% solution = 2kg of it so around £20 below is where i got my info from . The problems i can see with dip tanks are will everyone use them and does the chemical affect the fish if the nets are not rinsed properly , Supply nets and slings and matts , that has to be the way to go . It is sold as tablets or powder which dissolve readily in water. It is intended to be mixed with water to form a 1% to 3% solution (by weight, i.e. 10g to 30g per litre). The pink colour is useful in that it helps gauge the concentration when preparing the Virkon, and importantly, as the Virkon ages it discolours, making it obvious when it needs to be replaced. The solution is generally stable for five to seven days.

If you google virkon there is a Wiki page on it ,from what i can tell it will work for up to a week and then needs to be changed and i fear that will be the biggest problem - fishery owners keeping the tanks clean and replacing the liquid every week . My guess is it will cost around £15 / week to buy the amount of virkon required .

johnplumb wrote: May be a daft question but , has there ever been a documented case where it has been proved that a wet net has transported KHV or something similar from one lake to another ? I think that we can dismiss this as being fairly obvious Can we ? i have long thought that if you could transfer KHV via nets then surley birds , rats , foxes , otters must be able to do the same this artical below is quite interesting Cormorants now being linked to the spread of KHV By Angling Times Fishery News 01 October 2010 16:00 For years the cormorant has been regarded as angling’s public enemy No1. This week that label has been further justified as experts reveal that the feathered predators could also be responsible for spreading the deadly Koi Herpes Virus (KHV). Following one of the worst years on record for fish-kills at commercial venues, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) has stated that fish-eating birds, such as cormorants and herons, have the potential to transfer the killer virus from one lake to another. Until now KHV, which has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of carp across the UK, was thought to have spread via either the movement of live fish or by contaminated nets used by anglers. But it’s now feared that the disease could be transferred by the droppings of birds that have eaten infected carp, or even on the feathers of waterfowl that have come into contact with fluids secreted from decomposing fish. “It’s possible that birds such as cormorants have the potential to spread KHV from one water to another,” said Dr Kevin Denham, head of the Fish Health Inspectorate at CEFAS. “It could be carried in their faeces and also in the undigested fish often regurgitated by cormorants when they’re startled. “Decomposing fish that have died from KHV release oils and fluids into the water which could be transferred over a short distance by a bird that comes into contact with it.” Even though CEFAS is currently conducting research to find out more about the disease, given this recent revelation, it’s now feared that it will be impossible to stop the spread of the killer virus. Barston Lake in Solihull, West Mids, tested positive to KHV in 2007, and owner Nigel Harrhy is one of many who is certain cormorants and other fish-eating birds are to blame. “I’m convinced that KHV can be transferred by cormorant droppings and I’ve spoken to countless fishery owners who all agree,” Nigel told AT. “I know one man who owns 18 lakes and, despite fishing being allowed on just four of them, the carp in every one have KHV. They contained different stock and different water supplies, so how did the disease get passed on if it wasn’t birds which are free to move from one water to the other? “Research must be done, otherwise I don’t see how we can protect our fisheries totally from KHV.”

May be a daft question but , has there ever been a documented case where it has been proved that a wet net has transported KHV or something similar from one lake to another ?

QUOTE -I'm fishing a French lake with a barbless rule and these hook-pulls seem to have coincided with switching from very short shank wide gape to medium length curved shank hooks. An ideas? Change back to the wide gape hooks ?

I feel fully barbed hooks are very harsh on a fish when being unhooked, i use micro barbed hooks even if the fishery rules state barbless ( if i feel i can get away with it ) Problems arise because people do not seem to understand how to remove a hook with any kind of a barb on it.

To me your rigs look like they need a bit of fine tuning look at Gary's it just looks neater , not sure what difference it would make but your hair loop looks huge .

Another fan of basic rigs , i feel we will all go through times where we start to question if our rigs are working and look for something different truth is you will not always be on the fish , If you feel your rig is being picked up and dumped then that is different , a pinch of putty a few inches from the hook can be a simple but effective change and of course a sharp hook is critical . Of course hook pattern is another huge factor i have never liked the long shank hooks and favour the wide gape . Might be worth having different rigs on each rod ( slight changes ) see if something starts working . Good luck.

Good old fashion method feeder has to be worth a go .